Posted by Tony on Mar 22, 2009 in
General Thoughts
One of the panellists I listened to at SXSW put a slide up containing the world’s shortest sci-fi novel:
“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”
(sidebar – this is actually pretty flawed as a novel, making the sexist assumption that the last man on earth is also the last person, but let’s not nitpick)
Perhaps in years to come, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, we’ll all have been reduced to beings with attention spans shorter than a metalhead at a Britney concert. Never mind – I’m not going to let a bandwagon pass me by, so here are some reviews of the bands I’ve seen at SXSW, Twitter-style. In no particular order. It’s important to note (or maybe it’s not, but I’ll note it anyway) that SXSW is a Festival of discovery and if you don’t recognise many of the names on the list don’t worry – nor had I until I stumbled into their shows on a word of mouth recommendation, because I liked the poster or I needed a beer and was passing by. I’ve left out a couple of bands I did see perform purely because I didn’t stick around for long or missed their names, which is, I guess, a review in itself.
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Tags: music, review, sxsw
Posted by Tony on Mar 22, 2009 in
General Thoughts
(This is a piece I did for the M&G Podcast this week)
I’m in Austin, Texas. Well, that’s true but not absolutely true. I’m at South by Southwest – a week long orgy of a conference that spans the triple disciplines of interactive, film and music, and all the grey areas in between that they share. To say that South by (as we regulars call it) is big, is like saying that Table Mountain is pretty. It’s true, but it doesn’t begin to do the kind of justice to the statement that true hyperbole can. It’s frigging ginormous. So while I am in Austin, I’m in Austin during something so big and all consuming that the city becomes secondary. Like Edinburgh or Grahamstown during their festivals, or Mecca during the hajj. The cities are there, but they become secondary to the event which the city wears like a fresh skin. South by is as much the skin of Austin as it is the heart, lungs and quivering liver.
Trips like this are best reflected on, their true value only unfolding in the fullness of time. Asking me in the middle of the frenzy to offer any insight into its worth or impact is like turning to me in the middle of a movie and asking me what I thought. I can tell you I am enjoying it, but I can’t tell you why. So let me do this….
Being at the creative and technological hub of the world, and sharing that experience with those who shaped the world to begin with is enough, I think, to qualify me to offer up some observations and theories about trends.
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Tags: austin, music, parlotones, sxsw
